Prager University says that _____ was the cause of the Civil War

Hon. Horace Greeley:
Dear Sir.


I have just read yours of the 19th. addressed to myself through the New-York Tribune. If there be in it any statements, or assumptions of fact, which I may know to be erroneous, I do not, now and here, controvert them. If there be in it any inferences which I may believe to be falsely drawn, I do not now and here, argue against them. If there be perceptable in it an impatient and dictatorial tone, I waive it in deference to an old friend, whose heart I have always supposed to be right.

As to the policy I "seem to be pursuing" as you say, I have not meant to leave any one in doubt.

I would save the Union. I would save it the shortest way under the Constitution. The sooner the national authority can be restored; the nearer the Union will be "the Union as it was." If there be those who would not save the Union, unless they could at the same time save slavery, I do not agree with them. If there be those who would not save the Union unless they could at the same time destroy slavery, I do not agree with them. My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that. What I do about slavery, and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union; and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union. I shall do less whenever I shall believe what I am doing hurts the cause, and I shall do more whenever I shall believe doing more will help the cause. I shall try to correct errors when shown to be errors; and I shall adopt new views so fast as they shall appear to be true views.

I have here stated my purpose according to my view of official duty; and I intend no modification of my oft-expressed personal wish that all men every where could be free.

Yours,
A. Lincoln.


And of course the usual trolls can't produce any of these Big Giant Anti-Slavery Bills that were supposed to have provoked NC to secede, we only have the tariff and Homestead bills to point to, and Lincoln's deliberate illegal war.

Ah you mean Lincoln's deliberate illegal war- where he forced South Carolina to attack the United States Army?

The North didn't go to war to free the slaves- but the Confederates attempted to secede to preserve that peculiar institution.

Or do you think South Carolina was lying?

South Carolina Declaration of Causes of Secession | Teaching American History

The People of the State of South Carolina, in Convention assembled, on the 26th day of April, A.D. 1852, declared that the frequent violations of the Constitution of the United States, by the Federal Government, and its encroachments upon the reserved rights of the States, fully justified this State in then withdrawing from the Federal Union; but in deference to the opinions and wishes of the other slaveholding States, she forbore at that time to exercise this right. Since that time, these encroachments have continued to increase, and further forbearance ceases to be a virtue.....

This stipulation was so material to the compact, that without it that compact would not have been made. The greater number of the contracting parties held slaves, and they had previously evinced their estimate of the value of such a stipulation by making it a condition in the Ordinance for the government of the territory ceded by Virginia, which now composes the States north of the Ohio river.


The same article of the Constitution stipulates also for rendition by the several States of fugitives from justice from the other States....

For many years these laws were executed. But an increasing hostility on the part of the non-slaveholding States to the Institution of Slavery has led to a disregard of their obligations, and the laws of the general government have ceased to effect the objects of the Constitution.....Thus the constitutional compact has been deliberately broken and disregarded by the non-slaveholding States, and the consequence follows that South Carolina is released from her obligation

geographical line has been drawn across the Union, and all the States north of that line have united in the election of a man to the high office of President of the United States whose opinions and purposes are hostile to slavery. He is to be entrusted with the administration of the Common Government, because he has declared that that “Government cannot endure permanently half slave, half free,” and that the public mind must rest in the belief that Slavery is in the course of ultimate extinction.



 
Georgia


The people of Georgia having dissolved their political connection with the Government of the United States of America, present to their confederates and the world the causes which have led to the separation. For the last ten years we have had numerous and serious causes of complaint against our non-slave-holding confederate States with reference to the subject of African slavery. ....

.....The prohibition of slavery in the Territories, hostility to it everywhere, the equality of the black and white races, disregard of all constitutional guarantees in its favor, were boldly proclaimed by its leaders and applauded by its followers.

With these principles on their banners and these utterances on their lips the majority of the people of the North demand that we shall receive them as our rulers.


Why? Because by their declared principles and policy they have outlawed $3,000,000,000 of our property in the common territories of the Union; put it under the ban of the Republic in the States where it exists and out of the protection of Federal law everywhere; because they give sanctuary to thieves and incendiaries who assail it to the whole extent of their power, in spite of their most solemn obligations and covenants; because their avowed purpose is to subvert our society and subject us not only to the loss of our property but the destruction of ourselves, our wives, and our children, and the desolation of our homes, our altars, and our firesides. To avoid these evils we resume the powers which our fathers delegated to the Government of the United States, and henceforth will seek new safeguards for our liberty, equality, security, and tranquillity.

Approved, Tuesday, January 29, 1861
 
Mississippi
A Declaration of the Immediate Causes which Induce and Justify the Secession of the State of Mississippi from the Federal Union.

In the momentous step which our State has taken of dissolving its connection with the government of which we so long formed a part, it is but just that we should declare the prominent reasons which have induced our course.

Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery-- the greatest material interest of the world. Its labor supplies the product which constitutes by far the largest and most important portions of commerce of the earth. These products are peculiar to the climate verging on the tropical regions, and by an imperious law of nature, none but the black race can bear exposure to the tropical sun. These products have become necessities of the world, and a blow at slavery is a blow at commerce and civilization. That blow has been long aimed at the institution, and was at the point of reaching its consummation. There was no choice left us but submission to the mandates of abolition, or a dissolution of the Union, whose principles had been subverted to work out our ruin. That we do not overstate the dangers to our institution, a reference to a few facts will sufficiently prove.
 
Virginia
THE SECESSION ORDINANCE.
AN ORDINANCE TO REPEAL THE RATIFICATION OF THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA BY THE STATE OF VIRGINIA, AND TO RESUME ALL THE RIGHTS AND POWERS GRANTED UNDER SAID CONSTITUTION.

The people of Virginia, in their ratification of the Constitution of the United States of America, adopted by them in Convention on the twenty-fifth day of June, in the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and eighty-eight, having declared that the powers granted under the said Constitution were derived from the people of the United States, and might be resumed whensoever the same should be perverted to their injury and oppression; and the Federal Government, having perverted said powers, not only to the injury of the people of Virginia, but to the oppression of the Southern Slaveholding States.
 
Spam. None of those posts have a thing to with provoking the wave of secessions. Again, find any bills that had a thing to do with slavery that provoked the secessions. you can't, because it was the tariff and Homestead bills that caused the secessions.
 
Spam. None of those posts have a thing to with provoking the wave of secessions. Again, find any bills that had a thing to do with slavery that provoked the secessions. you can't, because it was the tariff and Homestead bills that caused the secessions.
LOLOL

^^^ idiot ^^^ says we should ignore what the states actually said; and instead, take his revisionist word.

:lmao:
 
It was the laws of the USA that made slavery legal for 89 years. Just before the war slavery had been backed by Congress and the Supreme Court. By 1860 the South had made slavery into a 2 Billion dollar per year business, mostly from the crops of cotton and tobacco.

Has anyone in history ever just given up on a billion dollar enterprise, that was legal, just because of moral or ethic concerns?
 
Last edited:
It was the laws of the USA that made slavery legal for 89 years. Just before the war slavery had been backed by Congress and the Supreme Court. By 1860 the South had made slavery into a 2 Billion dollar per year business, mostly from the crops of cotton and tobacco.

Has anyone in history ever just given up on a billion dollar enterprise, that was legal, just because of moral or ethic concerns?


Hell, we are all bonded and indentured debt slaves and don't even know it. How much of what we take home in federal reserve notes is taken from us with so many taxes? We have never been paid in REAL money, something with an intrinsic value...we have been paid in scrip. Most people have no clue as to how paper currency came to be and what it once represented and was suppose to represent. The 14th amendment didn't free the slaves insomuch as it made all of us "slaves" and property of the federal "gubermint".
 
And yet Lincoln offered the south slavery forever, as long as they stayed in the union. If it was all about slavery, why did the south refuse his offer and chose to fight?

Because the most zealous of the secessionists didn't believe him, and they carried the day.
 
And yet Lincoln offered the south slavery forever, as long as they stayed in the union. If it was all about slavery, why did the south refuse his offer and chose to fight?

Because the most zealous of the secessionists didn't believe him, and they carried the day.
Some truth to that.

However it was the abolitionist zealots in the North, that wanted slavery eliminated and pushed for war.
 
If you are in denial over the Southern secession being about slavery,

I suggest you start by reading the C.S.A. Constitution.
And...if you are in doubt that Lincoln was an ardent racist even for his time, you are in denial.

He was also an ardent big government statist (no doubt you like that), fully prepared to murder 850k Americans and destroy half the nation for his absurd statist view of the Constitution.
 
If you are in denial over the Southern secession being about slavery,

I suggest you start by reading the C.S.A. Constitution.
And...if you are in doubt that Lincoln was an ardent racist even for his time, you are in denial.

He was also an ardent big government statist (no doubt you like that), fully prepared to murder 850k Americans and destroy half the nation for his absurd statist view of the Constitution.

Lincoln carried out his oath of office. The war was precipitated by the seceding states seizing federal property they had no right to.
 
If you are in denial over the Southern secession being about slavery,

I suggest you start by reading the C.S.A. Constitution.
And...if you are in doubt that Lincoln was an ardent racist even for his time, you are in denial.

He was also an ardent big government statist (no doubt you like that), fully prepared to murder 850k Americans and destroy half the nation for his absurd statist view of the Constitution.

Lincoln was an ardent unionist, and as such represented the ultimate threat to the secessionist interests in the South,
who equated unionism with abolition.
 
If you are in denial over the Southern secession being about slavery,

I suggest you start by reading the C.S.A. Constitution.
And...if you are in doubt that Lincoln was an ardent racist even for his time, you are in denial.

He was also an ardent big government statist (no doubt you like that), fully prepared to murder 850k Americans and destroy half the nation for his absurd statist view of the Constitution.

Lincoln was an ardent unionist, and as such represented the ultimate threat to the secessionist interests in the South,
who equated unionism with abolition.
and an ardent racist.

He offered to the South slavery ensconced in the Constitution...so it could exist FOREVER!

Lincoln was a tyrant who believed kill them and destroy their property, to keep them in the Union. He was a traitor.
 
An interesting note .

Why They Fought
Men on both sides were inspired to fight by patriotism, state pride, the chance for adventure, steady pay. Union soldiers fought to preserve the Union; the common Confederate fought to defend his home. Later in the war, increasing numbers of Federal soldiers fought to abolish slavery, if for no other reason than to end the war quickly. Confederate soldiers sometimes fought because they feared Union victory would result in a society where black people were placed on an even footing with whites.

Army Melting Pots
The large majority of Civil War soldiers were native born. Nonetheless, large numbers of stout-hearted newcomers to the country also volunteered to fight–especially in the North. Nearly one quarter of the Union’s soldiers were immigrants, including 200,000 Germans; 150,000 Irish; 45,000 English; 15,000 Canadians, and lesser numbers of French, Norwegians, Italians, Mexicans, and Poles. Exact figures for the South are sketchy, but tens of thousands of Irish, Germans, British, French, Canadians, Dutch, and Austrians entered Confederate ranks.

Black Troops
By war’s end, African-American soldiers made up roughly 10 percent of the Union army. Approximately 179,000 black soldiers wore the blue; 37,000 lost their lives. In March 1865, the Confederate congress authorized the army to recruit 300,000 black troops. Some units were raised, but it was too late for them to make a difference.

Civil War Soldiers | HistoryNet


Black troops in the Union army were paid half the wages of white Union soldiers as well.....

And? I don't think that anyone will argue that the United States was generally racist in the era.

None of that changes the fact that the stated reason why Southern states seceded was to preserve 'the peculiar institution' of slavery.

The United States didn't fight to free the slaves- but the South attempted to secede in order to preserve slavery.
The South, "reneged" on our Declaration of Independence. Just a bunch of renegades.
 
If you are in denial over the Southern secession being about slavery,

I suggest you start by reading the C.S.A. Constitution.
It should have been about, eminent domain. The South, simply, "dropped the ball".

The South was much less uniformly in favor of secession than I think many believe. The pro-union pro-secession split was largely along socio-economic lines,

the wealthier, slave-owning, so-called Southern aristocracy supporting secession, the lower classes tending to favor staying in the union.
 
If you are in denial over the Southern secession being about slavery,

I suggest you start by reading the C.S.A. Constitution.
It should have been about, eminent domain. The South, simply, "dropped the ball".

The South was much less uniformly in favor of secession than I think many believe. The pro-union pro-secession split was largely along socio-economic lines,

the wealthier, slave-owning, so-called Southern aristocracy supporting secession, the lower classes tending to favor staying in the union.
Eminent domain is a right established in our federal Constitution. There would have been no civil war.
 
The Cornerstone Speech, also known as the Cornerstone Address, was an oration delivered by Confederate Vice President Alexander Stephens at the Athenaeum in Savannah, Georgia, on March 21, 1861.
The new Constitution has put at rest forever all the agitating questions relating to our peculiar institutions—African slavery as it exists among us—the proper status of the negro in our form of civilization. This was the immediate cause of the late rupture and present revolution. Jefferson, in his forecast, had anticipated this, as the "rock upon which the old Union would split." He was right. What was conjecture with him, is now a realized fact. But whether he fully comprehended the great truth upon which that rock stood and stands, may be doubted. The prevailing ideas entertained by him and most of the leading statesmen at the time of the formation of the old Constitution were, that the enslavement of the African was in violation of the laws of nature; that it was wrong in principle, socially, morally and politically. It was an evil they knew not well how to deal with; but the general opinion of the men of that day was, that, somehow or other, in the order of Providence, the institution would be evanescent and pass away... Those ideas, however, were fundamentally wrong. They rested upon the assumption of the equality of races. This was an error. It was a sandy foundation, and the idea of a Government built upon it—when the "storm came and the wind blew, it fell."
 

Forum List

Back
Top